Time to face the truth
by Tina Muller
Summary: Christmas is approaching and Rachel has planned it perfectly. After all, what better day to announce your engagement to your family than Christmas Eve? But things are rarely that easy, are they? And everybody lies, with no exception - not even Chloe. So there might be some hella difficult stuff to discuss first... The story takes place 7 years after the events of BtS in an AU.


Disclaimer: I own nothing of Life Is Strange. If I did, Amberprice would be the endgame.

* * *

"Chloe? Do you have a minute?" The blue-haired woman looked over to her long-term girlfriend and gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry, but I gotta fix this. I hadn't had time all week and I am hella screwed if our guests arrive because then the truck won't be fixed for yet another day." Rachel opened her mouth to protest, but closed it after a sigh. Typical. Chloe was already back at checking some cables, and her presence was forgotten.

Of course, Chloe's statement was hella true; it had been a busy week indeed. Rachel had returned from the set of a series she was staring in by Tuesday, the 19th of December. In a fit of something that might be called insane, she had convinced Chloe to invite both of their families for Christmas Eve.

She would never forget the incredulous look of the blue-haired tattoo artist, and the way she almost dropped that cup of coffee in her hand. "Rachel, how much alcohol did you drink?" she tried to joke - hell, it was fucking 10 am, they had just gotten up after all. "Very funny. I just feel like it might be a good idea, you know, make peace with the past and stuff."

They had left Arcadia Bay immediately after Rachel's graduation in 2013, hitting the road and driving that rusty truck all the way down to LA. Surprising everyone, Chloe had spent the year before working in a tattoo studio in secret, collecting a portfolio she sent to almost every studio in LA, and eventually got hired by one. Rachel managed to find an agent, but she quickly told her that being a model would be very unlikely, as the blonde Cali girl was neither tall nor skinny enough. Instead, she sent Rachel to the casting for a new fantasy series and she snagged one of the lead roles.

In the following four years, they had moved twice and currently lived in a flat in the far outskirts of LA. Chloe's old truck had died in the spring of 2015 and they replaced it with a 2007 Ford F150 Harley Davidson Edition and later bought a convertible Chevrolet Corvette C6 in case of them both needed a car at the same time. And now Rachel had persuaded Chloe to show all of that to their families.

Unfortunately, the real reason of Rachel's idea was still unknown to Chloe. Her blonde girlfriend had it all carefully planned...but she hadn't suspected that the filming would take longer; Chloe working some extra-shifts at the studio; some spark plug issues with Chloe's truck; that she had to prepare the fucking Christmas Eve dinner…it was hella annoying. And if she had to tell the truth, that simple platinum ring engraved with a pirate skull and an R and C was getting heavier with each minute that passed without asking Chloe.

Both of them were eating some burger and fries they had ordered, as neither was willing to cook dinner that night. Drinking some water, Rachel put her glass back on the table before leaning back in her chair, watching Chloe clean the table. How difficult could this be? Just present the ring, ask the question, smile and be golden. "So, do you have time for a conversation right now?" Chloe grinned at her. "You sound hella impatient, Amber. What's the matter?" Fuck her carefully planned strategy. The actress reached to the pocket, pulling out the ring, presenting it to Chloe in a nonchalant way. "Marry me."

* * *

"I…" Chloe stared at Rachel, the ring, and back, over and over again. "Say something…" Rachel finally whispered, almost choking. Whatever reaction she might have expected, it wasn't that. Why was Chloe looking so...panicked? Guilty, even? What was happening here? Running a hand through her blue hair, Chloe bit her lip. How far would you go to protect someone you loved? What is the value of the truth? "I am really sorry, but…"

A picture flashed up in front of Rachel's inner eye, how she had faked a heart attack in the Overlook Park so they could steal the wine from the picnickers. Maybe this was what a cardiac arrest actually felt like. The way her heart missed at least one beat, maybe two? The tightness around her chest: suffocating her. "But what?" She barely heard her own voice in that moment, it sounded so foreign to Rachel. Breath. It was not really a conscious thought, but merely a reflex; a survival instinct ingrained in the human DNA, the need to breathe out carbon dioxide and breathe in new oxygen.

In front of her, all texture was slowly dissipating due to the wetness in her eyes, even Chloe's face started to disappear, becoming a shaky blur of blue and pink. "I am so, so sorry, Rach. But I can't. Even though I want to." There was so much emotion in these words, so much pain. Rubbing the tears from her eyes, Rachel stared at Chloe, clenching her jaw. Perhaps whoever once said history always keeps repeating itself was right. It was horrible, the way this conversation mimicked the one in the junkyard, at the beginning of their relationship.

Only this time, the roles were completely reversed. Rachel was the one crying, stuttering, helpless after declaring her feelings, waiting for the verdict. "Why not?" she tried to scream, scream with all the fury in the whole fucking world, but all she managed was a weak whisper. Part of her suspected someone else, another woman - or maybe another man.

* * *

She was away for weeks sometimes, during the times when filming was at its height. So what happened? Imagination had always been a forte of her, and also a weakness. It could be hella awful to have a really vivid imagination sometimes and this was one of these moments. Closing her eyes, she actually saw Chloe walking in some fancy bar with her colleagues from work, frustrated that Rachel hadn't even texted her a "Good morning! 3" that day. And that guy in the suit who kept buying her drinks was just a little too understanding, a bit too flirty, a bit too good-looking. Of course. Of fucking course.

Not even three seconds had passed before Rachel opened her hazel eyes again, gritting her teeth. "Did you...cheat on me?" It hurt so much to say that out loud. Sometimes saying stuff makes it all worse, sometimes staying silent might be the better solution. If she had felt like choking before, this was being stabbed; but amplified by an unknown number, exponentially worse. This wasn't a knife to the arm; this was a knife to the fucking heart. She needed a smoke, a drink, a damn biro to click...anything. Anything to distract herself from it a little while longer. And by it, she meant Chloe twisting that knife.

"NO!" The shock on Chloe's face couldn't be an act, no fucking way. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth agape, her hands lifted up. It seemed that both of them just had their cardiac arrest moment for the evening. Frantically shaking her head - blue hair moving far too rapidly - the tattoo artist continued. "No. Oh god, Rach. How the hell did you get that idea?" Blue eyes met hazel ones in a stare contest, freezing in place. Nothing else seemed to be real anymore, to exist anymore.

"Then why?" It was an accusation and both knew it. The famous Amber temper was fully there, and Chloe sighed. She knew how Rachel could be if she went uber-rage, luckily her hands were empty except for the ring and nothing else to throw was in reach. Nothing stayed ever truly hidden, was ever truly covered over. Had she really thought she could get away with that lie? Probably. It had become an afterthought for the blue-haired woman.

There were moments she remembered, of course, most of them in the dead of night. When she was wide awake and watched Rachel sleep next to her in the pale moonlight. Asleep, she looked younger than she was, and that often triggered her guilt. Had she been right to lie to her friend, back in 2010? Sometimes, at night, that came back to haunt her, and she would dream of the burnt mill. Mostly she saw Sera in front of her, but other times it was Damon or Frank or even the bouncer. All of them accusing her of lying, of keeping Rachel in the dark because this would be the final straw for her to pack her bags and leave.

Waking up - sometimes shaking, sweating, with a painfully accelerated heartbeat - from these dreams was a relief, a high almost. Most of the following mornings began with her preparing breakfast for both of them, anything to keep her brain busy. Rachel suspected nightmares, probably heard her scream in her dreams more than once, but she never forced Chloe to tell her about the dreams. Maybe it was time now. There was no way Chloe would accept the proposal and fucking marry her without coming clean about that lie.

* * *

Grabbing Rachel's hand, she led her to the couch, both of them sitting down. "Rach, I want to talk to you about something. But I don't how to talk about this." Seriously? What the hell was going on? Was Rachel supposed to answer with "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." right now? Well, she had experience to go off-script. "What could be so bad then that you think it's horrible enough to…" The blue haired woman raised her hand, impatiently. "Rachel, please, stop. I...I lied to you."

Lied? About what, exactly? This was getting more surreal by the minute and Rachel felt like splashing some cool water on her face, or maybe pinching her hand - anything to wake up right now. "You know; these nightmares I sometimes have?" Talking about this was going to be really fucking hard, but maybe the full truth would keep Rachel from hating her forever. Maybe, if she was really, really lucky. Biting her tongue to hold back an angry reply, Rachel simply nodded. "They are about what happened...that day." She stretched her hand out, slowly, carefully, and touched the faint scar on Rachel's left arm.

Huh. That was hella surprising now. Really? Rachel rarely thought about that day, it was mostly flashes of Chloe, darkness and waking up in some hospital room. She had been out cold most of the time and Chloe still dreamed about not arriving at the hospital in time? "I didn't die on you back then. And I swear I won't die on you anytime soon." Saying that out loud made her frown. There was no way she was leaving, going anywhere, not without Chloe.

"That's not it. But I am afraid that I will die for you when I tell you." Seriously? Who wrote this script, there was way too much suspense here. Placing an almost painful grip on Chloe's hand, the blonde took a deep breath to settle herself. "What the hell are you talking about?" she murmured, noticing that Chloe was already crying; silent tears running over her face. Reaching up with her free hand to wipe them away gently, Rachel kept staring, mentally willing her to continue.

"I went out to that old mill, you know, where Firewalk was? I…" Damn, this was difficult. Staying silent about it for seven years didn't help either. Sobbing once, she took a deep breath to calm herself, steading herself. But maybe there was no way to steady oneself for whatever would come next: Loosing Rachel Amber. "I went out there, because that's where Damon Merrick was." Rachel's thoughts went into overdrive; she recalled that he had mysteriously disappeared that day, never to be found again.

What the hell had Chloe done out there? Damn, she was really killing her today, wasn't she? Fear for her partner in literally everything rose, freezing her heart, putting it in a wall of ice. "You don't have to go on, Chloe, if you can't…" The Amber imagination came back in full force then. There was a strange mixture of ember, cold ash and sawdust she imagined breathing in; Chloe, angry beyond reason, shouting at Damon; a fight, short and dirty, with punches and kicks and then, by sheer luck - Damon's own knife in his chest.

* * *

"I have to. You need to know. Fuck. I should have told you back then, but she begged me not to." She? Obviously the confusion was evident on Rachel's face, as Chloe closed her eyes for a second, before continuing her tale. "Your mother. Sera." What? What was going on again? Had Chloe seen her? Talked to her? Blue eyes once more studied hazel ones; looking for any emotion, but the usual fire had seemingly gone out for the while being. Not that the eerie silence made anything easier for the tattoo artist, she had imagined that the actress would already throw stuff across the room, shouting at her, leaving her.

"When I was in your father's office, I found a hidden box. Apparently, she had sent back his cheques for the past eleven months, and sent you letters for years. But James never showed them to you and hid them instead. There was also a letter from a court, that she was suing him so she could see you. He...he was afraid of what she might do, so he struck a deal with that asshole Damon. I stole his money and headed to the mill. There...I...Damon drugged her. I tried to stop him, I really tried. But he ended up kicking me in the head, just as Frank arrived to save the day. When I woke up, we talked and she kept begging me to lie to you. To tell you I didn't find her, because she would be hooked up on heroin again. I was so...fucking torn...but when I was in the hospital and saw you, asleep, between James and Rose...I couldn't tell you to truth. I just couldn't."

Sometime after "cheques", her brain had stopped working properly. Rachel felt as if she was on some tranquilizer, feeling everything through a filter, as if you stare through the wrong end of a telescope. Her father...what he had done...she had claimed that she would hold on to fire, but in that moment she knew the world would end in ice. Worst part, she had actually fucking invited him for Christmas this year. And Chloe...lying to her for all these years. "I need some air." She basically jumped to her feet, hit by the unstoppable urge to run, to leave, to get the fuck out of here.

She was nearing the door when Chloe's voice stopped her, momentarily cutting through the red haze she was seeing through. "Please, don't drive somewhere. Go to the beach, downtown, where ever, but please don't take a car." A tiny part of her - one that hadn't succumbed to anger - listened to that, and when she stood by the street, she took a sharp turn left. If there was anything that might cool Rachel Amber down; it would probably be the sound of waves, gently arriving at the shore.

* * *

It was a rarely lucky coincidence that they lived so close to the beach; it took her only ten minutes to get there and another fifteen to reach an area few people ever went to. Another lucky coincidence - she was really alone at the beach that evening, so she when Rachel finally started screaming, nobody heard her.

Whatever she had expected from Chloe, it hadn't been that. Not something like that, on that scale. She remembered the night after The Tempest, falling asleep in Chloe's arms, feeling safe with the one person she loved and trusted the most. Seemingly, one more case of misplacing her trust, thank you, Karma, fuck you. When Chloe had told her how she'd failed her...damn...that hadn't even been a lie. The older girl had known that this was a failure of not being truthful, of lying to Rachel.

Sitting down on a rock, wrapping her arms around her knees, the actress tried to make herself as small as humanly possible while she rocked gently back and forth. For a while there was almost nothing in the world, just the sound of her sobs, the ragged breaths...and in front of her, the sun slowly set.

Once more, her mind jumped back to the beginning of their relationship, and their murmured discussion about stars. Did that lie make Chloe any less beautiful for her? Why had she decided to stay silent? The orange light gave her a glimpse of understanding. During the span of three days, Chloe had seen her angry quite a few times. First time, she had thrown a beer bottle across the room, hitting that skeevy douchebag. Second time, she had thrown a bottle of wine so hard it shattered. Third time, she had set a National park on fire. Fourth time, she had totally demolished that glass table. Fifth time, she had attacked a dangerous criminal and got stabbed in the process.

Slowly, the red haze was lifted from her eyes and the cold, iron grip around her heart relaxed a bit. From what Chloe had known of her, Rachel would have hated her father for the rest of her life if she'd ever known the truth, maybe did something stupid again. It was wrong, what he did, a crime even, but Chloe was a sixteen years old teenager, whose only friend had just come out of surgery that day. Asking her for that favour - it might have been as well her drugged, or even worse, killed. "You've been hella selfish, Amber, as usual", she told the final rays of sunshine.

Her blue haired partner in crime had carried that weight with her for more than seven years now, so afraid of telling her. Fresh tears pooled in her eyes, and Rachel closed them, as if in pain. All evening, she kept thinking of the beginnings, and of course she hurt Chloe again, walking away once more. Young, brown haired, teenage Chloe and the older, blue haired adult one - with the same emotion in their ocean blue eyes: agony. Agony, because Rachel was turning her back on her again.

"Please don't take the car." Chloe's words rang in her head like an iron bell, repeating themselves over and over again. If Rachel had to look for any straw, for any proof of what she really meant to the woman who had turned her proposal down, she had found it. Rachel's fiery temper could have easily flared, lashing out at Chloe, but she took that risk, only because she was afraid to lose her the same way her father died; in a damn fucking car crash. What was she going to do? Why does being an adult suck so much sometimes? And why does that fucking universe never answer her?

* * *

Closing the door behind her, Rachel took an unnecessary deep breath. Whatever was going to happen next - if she was going to go down, she would do it in flames. Chloe had moved from the sofa back to their kitchen table and the blonde studied her for a moment. Head hanging low, shoulders hunched, she was practically projecting sadness. Seeing her like that broke Rachel's heart. Fuck that, she would probably make an appointment with a cardiologist the next day, or she really would have a cardiac arrest soon.

Clearing her throat, Rachel finally entered the room. "Hey." Her voice sounded strained - probably from all the screaming at waves - but at least steady. "You came back", Chloe stated, as if she was surprised by that. Maybe she actually was, in front of her were some pictures of them, and it seemed she had been crying over the possible loss of her Rachel. "You're not getting rid of me that easily, you should know that by now." Rachel didn't even manage to recognize the tone of her own voice. Sarcastic? Sassy? Solemn?

"I take it you thought about what I told you?" It took her all of her shaky self-control to refrain from rolling her eyes. What else should she have done? "Yeah, I did." Silence was as good for suffocating as water sometimes. "And?" "Chloe Price, you lied to me, lied to my face." A sharp nod of her blue-haired head; unsurprised. So this is how it ends.

Slamming her fist to the table, Rachel opened it and lifted it. In front of both of them laid a platinum ring with an engraved pirate skull between an R and a C. "You're going to make it hella up to me." The blue haired woman looked up, searching for a hint of a joke, finding none. "Preferably for the rest of our lives." Rachel couldn't help but add with a half-smile on her face. "I...I…"

"Damn, Price, if you turn me down once more. I have no fucking intention on proposing to you three fucking times." "I see your romantic side shining through, Amber." Fortunately, the tattoo artist had found her voice again. "You really mean it?" A nod, and a smile, but no words; perhaps they were useless anyway. "Then...hell, yeah." Smiling, Chloe grabbed the ring and placed it on her left ring finger.

* * *

"I'm sorry", Rachel whispered, hours later, as the time on the alarm clock switched from 03:58 to 03:59. "What for?" A blue-haired whisper and a blonde shrug. "I should have known something was wrong, should have been there for you, and should have been more insistent for you to tell me about your nightmares." Easier said than done, though. "And to think you had to carry this around for more than seven years…"

"You know, Rach, if you tell yourself a lie often enough, you begin to believe it yourself. I just kept telling me how good it was to protect you from the truth, when in fact I simply had no idea to talk to you about it." "You're right, I suppose." A comfortable silence for quite some time followed and the numbers slowly switched until 4:17.

"Are you going to talk about it with James when they arrive?" "No. Not yet, at least. I don't feel like that's a topic to be touched on Christmas. I am probably going to talk to him next year. You know...I actually invited them over so we could tell all of them about us getting married. That would totally save us a trip to the Bay of Doom." She could almost feel Chloe smile. "Hella practical, Amber. And what would you have done if I hadn't accepted?" "Don't ever joke about that, Price. That's not funny." "You're right about that. I mean, seriously, I might have given in too easily in the end." The blonde sighed. "Still not funny at all." Chloe smirked. "Nah. But you begging for something is hella funny."


End file.
